Skip to main content
newsletter

The question

What is carbonic maceration?

The answer

It’s a special fermentation technique practised most commonly in the French region of Beaujolais, where it helps enhance fruitiness and softens tannins in red wines designed to be consumed young.

Standard fermentation requires grapes to be crushed so that the sugars in the juice come in contact with yeast on the skins and in the air, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide. The alcohol remains in the finished wine while the carbon dioxide is permitted to escape in gaseous form from the tank. In the case of carbonic maceration, berries are left intact and placed in a sealed vat. Carbon dioxide is then pumped into the vat, causing fermentation to take place inside the cells of each intact grape. Because the tannin-bearing skins don’t steep in the juice during this period, there’s less astringency in the finished wine. Other reactions associated with the process also contribute different sorts of flavours than those under conventional skin-contact fermentation.

The most noteworthy pioneer of carbonic maceration was Jules Chauvet, a Beaujolais winemaker and chemist who is also considered the father of the natural-wine movement. And without him, it’s unlikely Beaujolais nouveau would have been the global phenomenon it became. Which, depending on your perspective, could be a good or a bad thing.

Beppi Crosariol will once again be participating as The Globe’s wine expert on the July 2019 Globe and Mail Seine River Cruise. For details on how to reserve your cabin on this voyage down the Seine from Paris to Normandy visit GlobeNormandyCruise.com.

E-mail your wine and spirits questions to Beppi Crosariol. Look for answers to select questions to appear in the Wine & Spirits newsletter and on The Globe and Mail website.

Interact with The Globe